Use minimal ingredients – just buttercream and jelly – with a super easy technique to create a colourful, shiny design that looks like stained glass but tastes wonderful, too! If you prefer to watch a video of this tutorial, scroll to the bottom of the page.

Before you frost your cake you’ll need to prepare your jelly. Mix 5 little packets of unflavoured gelatin, which is about 35 grams, with 1/2 a cup of water. This makes enough jelly for a tall 4″ or 6″ cake, or a short 8″ cake, but you can scale the recipe up or down depending on the size of your cake.

Leave the gelatin mixture for 3 or 4 minutes to bloom, which makes the gelatin smooth and strong, and meanwhile heat 1 cup of water and 1/2 a cup of granulated sugar over a medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture starts to boil.

Take the pan off the heat and add the gelatin, stirring until it dissolves. Lift out any hard chunks of gelatin that are floating around and try to skim off the foam around the sides of the pan, and this will make the jelly more clear and bright. You can pour it through a sieve to catch any hard chunks of gelatin if you don’t want to scoop them out one by one.

Divide the jelly into a few bowls, however many colours you want to use. I’m going to use gel colours: yellow, orange and red for autumn leaves, brown for a tree trunk and branches, and blue for the sky. Add small amounts of gel colours to each bowl to tint the jelly.

If you want light shades, dip a toothpick into the bottle of colour to get just a tiny bit on the toothpick instead of a full drop. This is also useful when mixing colours, for example mixing a drop of orange with a tiny bit of red on a toothpick to create a darker shade of orange.

The jelly might start to set as you’re colouring the bowls and if that happens, you can still mix in the colour now and then put the bowl in the microwave for 15 seconds at a time to gently reheat the jelly to make it liquid again. If you overheat the jelly you’ll damage the gelatin and it won’t set properly.

As you’re colouring your jelly, keep in mind what you’re going to use that colour for, and how much of the cake it will be covering. I’m using blue for the sky on the sides and top of the cake so I need more blue than any other colour, so I’m using the biggest bowl for this.

Once you’ve made your colours, line a tray or baking tray with parchment paper and pour the jelly on! It’s fine if they run into each other, and if you pour similar colours next to each other you might really like using the pieces of jelly where the colours blend into each other.

Leave the jelly for about an hour to set or you can put it in the fridge for 30 minutes and then peel sections off the parchment and cut them into little shapes.

You can cut them with a pair of scissors, cutting at different angles to cut differently shapes triangles and other random shapes. They might attach to each other, to the scissor blades, or to your fingers a little bit, but they’re not sticky so it’s easy to pull them apart and place back on the parchment.

You can use a knife instead to cut the jelly, scoring random lines and then pulling the pieces of jelly apart. You can assemble and crumb coat your cake before you do this but it’s important to have all of your jelly pieces ready before you frost your cake with the final coat of frosting and I’ll show you why in a moment.

I’m using my 4 Minute Buttercream to frost my cake but this will work with meringue buttercream, whipped cream or ganache as well. Plain white frosting is best because any colours will show through your jelly pieces, tinting them and changing the colours.

The frosting is going to be almost completely covered with jelly but you still need it to be nice and smooth, with straight sides and nice sharp edges at the top. I have a tutorial on how to get perfectly smooth frosting on cakes in case you’re struggling with that!

As soon as you’ve frosted your cake, start creating your stained glass design with the jelly pieces. Press each one gently into the frosting and because you’ve just frosted the cake, the frosting will still be soft and sticky so the jelly pieces will attach to it easily. Don’t worry if you nudge the frosting with a finger and cause a little dent because you can place a piece of jelly over the top to cover it up.

Leave a little gap between each piece of jelly and when you have a space between pieces of jelly, look for another piece that has a similar shape to that space so that it fills its much of the space as possible while still leaving a thin gap between that piece and the pieces surrounding it. You can trim pieces of jelly to fit into small spaces if you need to.

I like to build the basic shape first, so the tree trunk and branches for this design, and then fill in the rest of the design starting with the narrowest areas because you need the smallest pieces of jelly for that, and sometimes very particular shapes like a tiny triangle or a long thin piece.

This is my favourite kind of technique because you can be creative without needing to be perfectly precise – you don’t need to measure distances between the pieces of jelly and if one piece doesn’t quite fit, you can nudge the pieces around it to create a bit more space and since the frosting is still soft you can move the pieces slightly.

You have to work quite quickly to place all of the pieces of jelly before the frosting sets, especially if your cake is cold because then your frosting will set even faster. If it does set and the jelly isn’t sticking anymore, chill the cake to set the frosting so it’s firm and then spread a thin layer over the remaining part of the cake with no jelly on it and then press more jelly pieces onto that area. Don’t forget the top of the cake, unless you want to leave it blank.

In real time, the decorating part of this cake took me 34 minutes, to place all of the jelly pieces to create the design. How do you store a jelly cake? If you put it in the fridge without covering it up, the jelly will dry out and get hard and peel off the frosting. Store the cake in an airtight container in the fridge until 2 – 4 hours before you serve it.

I’m excited for you to try this stained glass jelly cake technique so please tag @britishgirlbakes in your photos on instagram so I can see them!

If you’re looking for more cake decorating ideas using jelly, check out my Under The Sea jelly cake tutorial!

Here’s the video version of this tutorial:

Here are 10 easy techniques to create adorable animal cakes with NO fondant!

If you prefer to watch a video of this tutorial, scroll to the bottom of the page.

1. Use gel food colours to paint an animal onto a cake. Use the same gels you would use to tint buttercream. They’re quick to use because all you have to do is squeeze a few drops onto a plate or palette and add a few drops of vodka, or any other clear alcohol or clear flavour extract. To make a pastel colour, add white icing colour to the gel.

Chill your cake in the fridge first for at least an hour to set the frosting so it’s firm and then paint your animal onto the frosting. For very bold colours, like this brown, use mostly gel with just a tiny bit of vodka added, or for thinner coverage to make lighter shades just add more vodka to thin out the colour.

I like to start with an outline and then fill in the middle, just like you would if you were drawing a picture. It’s helpful to have a few different paintbrushes so that you don’t have to clean them as you switch back and forth between colours and it’s also much easier to do this if you have a picture to refer to. I use Google Images and choose a clip art image of whatever I want to paint, printing it out and referring to it while I’m painting.

2. Use buttercream to paint an animal onto a cake. Put a few colours of buttercream onto a plate and you’ll need a paintbrush and an offset spatula or palette knife, too.

Chill your frosted cake for an hour in the fridge to set the frosting and then cut out the shape you want to paint onto your cake (either a sketch you’ve done or an image you’ve printed). Trace around the animal with a toothpick onto the frosted cake to outline it.

Then paint the shape with buttercream, just like you would paint with acrylic paints. Using a thin paintbrush is useful for details like a trunk or tail, to stay within the outline you traced.

Brush on some shading with a darker shade of the same colour and add accents with different colours if you like. To add texture and to clarify which parts of the buttercream are which parts of the elephant, use your paintbrush or a toothpick to gently scratch lines where the elephant’s skin has creases or wrinkles. Buttercream is fun to play around with and it’s convenient because you already have it from frosting your cake, so you can tint the leftovers different colours to use for painting!

3. Pipe an animal onto a cake using any piping tip! Start by outlining you shape with a cookie cutter or use a toothpick to score the outline into the frosting like I did with the elephant in the previous technique.

Then pipe frosting to fill the outline of the shape. Choose a piping tip small enough to be able to stay within the outline, especially around the smaller details like the feet and the ears, otherwise the outline of the animal won’t be clear and it might be difficult to tell which animal it is!

For more detail you can use sprinkles to highlight certain areas for a quick and colourful addition.

4. Spread, pipe, and paint an animal to add much more detail to your animal. Start by spreading on some frosting for the face to create a flat surface, even if the frosting on your cake is textured, like this pink frosting.

Pipe on the fur with any piping tip. You might choose a grass tip for long shaggy fur or for this llama I’m using a 1M star tip to pipe little stars and rosette swirls. The more colours and textures you add, the more detailed and interesting the design will be.

Add details like ears by piping or spreading frosting, or do both! I spread the pink frosting on first for these ears and then pipe on the white fur around them with a medium round tip, spreading it flat with a small palette knife (or you could use an offset spatula).

For the face, use gel food colour and a paintbrush to paint on a nose, mouth, and eyes. Using a small paintbrush will allow you to add really tiny details, like eyelashes!

You can keep this as simple as you like. I added rosy pink cheeks to this llama by brushing on pink gel colour thinned out with vodka.

5. Pipe and transfer your animal onto a cake. By first piping it onto parchment paper you’ll create a perfectly flat shape AND it means you can trace a picture instead of drawing something free-hand. You’ll need a small round tip like a #3 or #4 to pipe the smaller details like this giraffe face, spots, and horns.

Put the parchment in the freezer for 5 minutes to set the small details and then pipe on the background colour, which is yellow for this giraffe. Spread the piping to flatten it and because the small details have frozen and hardened, you won’t blend the colours together as you spread this colour flat.

Pick the parchment up and press the piped animal against the frosting on your cake, pressing gently all over the animal and paying attention to outlying shapes like tails.

Put the cake in the fridge for an hour to set the animal. My 4 Minute Buttercream works really well for this because it gets very very firm when it’s cold. Peel the parchment off, leaving the animal behind on the cake!

You can add more details now if you like, like painting or piping on eyebrows or other thin lines.

6. Sculpt a 3D animal and add buttercream fur and details. Sculpting a cake is much easier than you might think. Start by sketching your animal – either the top view, or the side view, or both for the most accuracy.

Cut the animal out and then assemble your cake by alternating cake and filling. To attach cake layers to each other, for example if you want to place them side by side, spread buttercream in between them to act as glue.

Place your sketch on the cake, either on top or hold it up against the side, and trim around it with a serrated knife like a bread knife. Save the trimmings because you’ll use them next to add the details.

To create features like this dog’s head or hind legs, you can either use cake to add the feature or carve away some cake to leave the feature behind. For this dog, I’m adding cake to create the head but I’m carving away part of two of the corners of the cake to create the hind legs. When you’re happy with the shape, cover the whole thing in a thin layer of frosting, a crumb coat.

While the crumb coat sets, pipe details onto parchment paper like eyes and a nose with black buttercream. Put these in the freezer to chill and harden. You can pipe the white parts of the eyes and then attach the black pupils if you want to.

If your animal has a collar, add that before piping on the fur using a ribbon tip.

Attach the eyes once they’re frozen, sticking them onto the cake with a dot of fresh buttercream if the crumb coat has already set. Then pipe the fur on, starting at the bottom to make sure the fur goes all the way down to the cake board and then working your way up and across the animal.

If you’re using more than one colour it’s helpful to have a piping bag and tip for each colour of frosting so you can switch between the colours easily.

For details that you want to stick up, like the tail, pipe another layer on top to give it some height. Piping the fur is time consuming but it gives it a realistic shaggy texture.

7. Sculpt a 3D animal and add textured fur with a cake comb. Using a cake comb is a quicker way to add texture to the fur than piping it. Start by sculpting your cake and then cover it with a crumb coat and a final coat of frosting.

Then use a zig zag cake comb to imprint grooves in the frosting that look like fur. You could use a fork instead -iImprovise and use whatever tools you have available!

I used the same technique as I did for the dog to pipe and transfer the eyes and nose onto this sloth. I have a very detailed tutorial on how to make this  sloth cake here.

8. Create an animal cake with cupcakes! If sculpting a cake looks like too big of a project, using cupcakes is a really quick and easy way to make ADORABLE little animals! Stack cupcakes to create a tall cake, piping or spreading a layer of filling in between them to attach them together.

Cover the stacked cupcakes with a crumb coat of frosting to catch any crumbs and to lock the moisture into the cake.

Then pipe fur onto your animal using whatever piping tip and technique you like. I’m piping these ribbons with a #104 petal tip, with the narrow end pointing outwards and the wider end pressed against the crumb coat.

Make easy eyes with marshmallows, cutting a thin piece off each end and to make it smaller, cut a circle out of it with the end of a piping tip.

Poke a hole in the middle of each piece of marshmallow with the end of a pair of scissors and then press a chocolate chip into the hole, so that the flat base of the chocolate chip becomes the middle of the eye. Press these into the frosting fur on the cake and you have a little animal, or a monster in this case!

9. Cut your animals out of buttercream. Spread coloured buttercream onto parchment as thinly as you can and smooth it with your offset spatula or a frosting smoother. Put it in the freezer for at least 10 minutes to chill it so it gets very hard.

Use cookie cutters to cut shapes out of the frozen buttercream. You can cut simple, angular shapes out with a sharp knife but for more detailed outlines it’s much easier with a cookie cutter. .Pull away the surrounding buttercream, freeze the shapes for another 5 minutes so they get very hard again, and then lift them up and press them into the frosting on your cake

You can curve the shapes around the cake by wrapping them with parchment paper and then let the cake sit at room temperature for a few minutes so that the buttercream shapes start to warm up and soften, Then you can press them gently through the parchment paper to wrap them around the cake so that they sit flat against it.

Put the cake in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes for the shapes to harden again and then peel the parchment paper off!

10. Add animal features to a cake using chocolate. To create an animal by adding its features to a plain round cake, melt candy melts and spread them onto parchment paper. You can use white chocolate  instead, melting it and then addding oil based gel colours to tint it. Spread the chocolate onto parchment paper as thinly as you can and smooth it with your offset spatula or a frosting smoother.

Freeze the chocolate for 5 minutes and then use a sharp knife to cut out the pieces you need. I’m cutting out large orange triangles to create dinosaur spikes and I’ll also cut out small white triangles to be teeth. I’ve piped yellow chocolate dots to make spots on the frosting of my cake, which will be the dinosaur’s skin.

To make eyes, pipe two white chocolate circles or use discs of Candy Melts. Use an edible black pen to draw on the pupils or use a paintbrush and some black gel colour.

Frost your cake and immediately afterwards, while the frosting is still soft and sticky, press the features into the frosting. You can draw details like a smile with a sharp knife in the frosting.

The chocolate details will stick to the fresh frosting and when the frosting sets, it will secure them in place. This technique is quicker and easier than sculpting a cake but it’s just as cute!

I hope this tutorial has given you some fun ideas to try! Please tag @britishgirlbakes in your photos on instagram so I can see your creations! If you’re looking for inspiration, join my Club+ for access to ALL of my online classes and courses as well as live online classes and Q&A sessions for members only!

Here’s the video version of this tutorial:

Gold leaf makes cakes look instantly classier and once you know how to use it, it’s easy! I’ll show you the basics of how to use gold leaf on cakes to decorate frosting, drips, piping, stencils, and several cake toppers. If you prefer to watch a video of this tutorial, scroll to the bottom of the page.

Let’s start with the basics. Gold leaf comes packaged within these protective sheets because it’s very delicate – don’t touch it or it will stick to your finger!

Lift gold leaf up with a paintbrush or tweezers. It will transfer easily from these surfaces but if you pick it up with your hands, the gold leaf will stick to the moisture on your fingers and it will be impossible to take off in one piece.

Decorate a cake with gold leaf after chilling the cake in the fridge for at least an hour to set the frosting and decorations so that they’re firm. Lift the golf leaf up and you’ll be able to press it gently against a drip that’s set, without damaging the drip.

You can transfer the gold leaf onto the frosting of the cake by gently pressing it against the frosting with a paintbrush. If the frosting has set, you can push it so that lies flat and the pressure from your paintbrush won’t damage the frosting on the cake.

Gold leaf looks really pretty when it’s placed randomly on the cake like this, or you can be more intentional.

Outline piping by first letting the piping set for about an hour in the fridge so it gets hard and then press the gold leaf gently against the edge. Leave it sticking out or press it flat against the piping by dabbing it with your paintbrush.

Since the piping has set, you won’t damage it as you push the gold leaf into it. Gold makes a stunning outline around the piping!

Make simple cake toppers look glamorous with gold leaf. Attach it to macarons the same way you would add it to the frosting on a cake, lifting the gold leaf up with a paintbrush and then pressing it gently onto the surface of the macaron.

Gold leaf looks beautiful on fresh fruit, too!

I brushed the edges of these petals with water to make them damp and the gold leaf sticks to that moisture. This makes the flowers match the gold leaf on the frosting on the cake, and makes them look fancier!

For very specific placement of gold leaf, use a stencil. After the frosting on the cake has set, brush it with a clear alcohol like vodka to make it moist so that the gold leaf will stick.

Wrap a stencil around the cake and then peel the backing paper away from a sheet of golf leaf and press the gold leaf against the stencil. It will stick to the damp frosting through the gaps in the stencil. The alcohol will evaporate and disappear within a few minutes.

Simple shapes work best for this because details are easily lost in intricate stencils. If you don’t like the result you can brush it away with a paintbrush dipped in vodka, which will dissolve the gold leaf.

Simpler designs are more effective than very intricate designs. To make your own stencil, cut a shape out of parchment paper and leave the outline intact.

Press the outline against a cake and brush on some vodka with a paintbrush or a sponge. This will provide some moisture for the gold leaf to attach to.

Peel one side of the backing away from a sheet of gold leaf and press  the gold leaf onto the stencil, pushing through the other side of the backing so that you don’t touch the gold leaf. When you peel that side of the backing away, if there are any parts of the stencil shape that aren’t covered with gold you can try brushing gold leaf from the parchment paper surrounding it, over onto the shape, to cover it up completely.

Peel the stencil off to leave your gold shape behind!

To completely cover a cake with gold leaf, let the frosting on the cake set and then peel off one side of the backing paper.

Press the gold leaf into the frosting on the cake, using the other side of the paper to press without touching the gold leaf with your hands.

When you peel the backing paper away, the gold leaf will be left on the cake.

Repeat the process with several sheets of gold and they’re so thin that where they overlap they’ll blend together to form a flat layers of gold all over the cake!

I hope this tutorial has been useful! Check out my online cake school for LOTS of cake decorating courses and join my Club for access to ALL of my classes as well as live interactive demonstrations and Q&A sessions!

Here’s the video version of this tutorial:

You can create stunning cakes even if you only have 5 minutes to spare! I’ll show you 5 cake designs you can decorate in 5 minutes, sharing my tips for the most efficient techniques.

If you prefer to watch a video of this tutorial, scroll to the bottom of the page.

Create gorgeous ruffles using a petal tip. Fill the piping bag with buttercream or whatever frosting you’re using and you’ll see the tip looks like a teardrop, with a wide end and a narrow end.

Hold the tip down, with the wide end pressed against the cake. Squeeze the bag and wiggle it back and forth slowly as you lift it up the side of the cake, keeping the tip pressed against the cake so that the ruffles you’re piping stick to the frosting on the cake.

I like to do this after the frosting on the cake has set so I put this cake in the fridge for an hour before piping these ruffles. That way, the frosting is firm so you won’t damage it by pressing the piping tip against it. Wiggle the ruffles as much or as little as you like, and pipe them as close or far apart from each other as you like.

I’m using my 4 Minute Buttercream but whipped cream will work for this or meringue buttercream. Pipe the ruffles so that they stick up a bit above the top edge of the cake, and we’ll tidy that up next.

When you finish piping ruffles all the way around the cake, use an offset spatula or a frosting smoother to scrape from the outer edge towards the middle fo the cake to tidy up the top of the ruffles, so that they finish level with the top of the cake.

With just one piping tip and one motion all around the cake, you can create gorgeous texture in less than 5 minutes!

Add quick colour and texture by spreading or piping dots onto a cake and then swooshing them upwards. I have a few tips for doing this fast, and also to get the neatest results.

The most efficient way to do this is to store any small amount of leftover buttercream from other cakes in ziplock bags in the freezer. Pull the colours you want out the night before you do this so that they defrost and come to room temperature.

Snip off a corner of the bag and squeeze the leftover buttercream straight onto the cake. Make sure the frosting on your cake has set before you start, so that these colours sit on top of the frosting and don’t blend with the base colour, and that way the colours and texture will really stand out.

Use an offset spatula to swoosh each dot upwards, or you can use the back of a spoon to do this instead.

This is a really fast and simple way to add LOTS of colour to your cake in less than 5 minutes!

Make your own simple stencil by sketching a shape onto parchment paper and cutting it out to keep the paper outside of the shape intact. Notice that I’ve placed the shape within the curve of the parchment, so the sides curl underneath my shape. That will be important in a minute.

Use as many colours as you like for this – I’ve squeezed the leftovers from several piping bags onto this plate.

Wrap your stencil around a cake after the frosting sets – this cake has been in the fridge for an hour. Notice that the sides of the stencil wrap around the cake for me, holding the stencil in place, because I put the shape within the curve.

Scoop up some buttercream with an offset spatula and spread it onto the stencil, spreading from outside the shape, towards the middle of the shape, and that way you won’t push buttercream underneath the stencil, which would smudge the outline. Work your way around the stencil, always spreading towards the middle of the shape.

When the shape is covered up, use a frosting smoother to scrape over the stencil and that will smooth the frosting and blend the colours together slightly. You can spread on more to do any touchups and then scrape again until you’re happy with how smooth the colours are.

Carefully peel the stencil off from the sides towards the middle, and pull it away.

You can scrape off any smudges of buttercream using a toothpick.

Also use a toothpick to add any details like these grooves here. Because the base frosting on the cake is cold and hard from the fridge, the toothpick will only scrape off the frosting you’ve just spread onto the stencil, and it won’t damage the base frosting on the cake.

Homemade stencils are a quick way to create any shape on a cake, and simple shapes like this pineapple work best. Detailed cakes don’t have to take all day to decorate – I have an online course called Fabulous Cakes, FAST, teaching how to decorate 10 cakes in less than 30 minutes each, and to find out more and sign up visit my online cake school.

The quickest way to decorate a cake, without having to wait for the frosting to set, is to add some sprinkles around the bottom of the cake to make a border.

Place the cake on a tray to catch any falling sprinkles so that it doesn’t take you forever to pick those up later! Pour sprinkles onto the cake board all the way around the cake. Don’t worry if sprinkles spill over onto the tray – that’s what it’s there for! you can lift the tray up when you finish and pour the extra sprinkles back into the bottle or packet.

Use an offset spatula or the back of a spoon or your hand to press the sprinkles into the bottom inch or two of the cake. Pressing the sprinkles in just after frosting the cake is the quickest, because the frosting is still soft and sticky so you hardly need any pressure to attach the sprinkles.

Spoon any leftover buttercream from frosting the cake into a piping bag fitted with a star shaped tip like a 1M tip.

Pipe swirls around the top of the cake, spiraling upwards and making each circle a bit smaller that the previous one until you  form a peak on the swirl. Press down slightly, release your pressure on the piping bag and lift it away to leave neat peak.

This cake design is simple but the sprinkles provide a burst of colour and the swirls add some height to the cake to make it look more elegant.

Use any hard candy or boiled sweets to make dramatic cake toppers.

Melt the candy in the microwave for 1 minute, until it’s liquid and bubbling.

Wait about a minute for the sugar to stop bubbling and then drizzle the melted candy over a piece of parchment paper.

If you don’t wait for it to stop bubbling, the liquid will be too runny to hold it’s shape and it will blob together, like this:

If you wait until the bubbles subside and then drizzle or wiggle it, the lines you make will be thinner and more distinct, like this. The sugar will take about a minute to cool.

Meanwhile, add some piping to the top of a cake. I’m using a 1M tip to pipe these waves, holding the bag slightly in from the edge of the cake and squeezing the buttercream out and letting it bulge out to the edge of the cake and then pulling the bag towards the middle of the cake and swiping away. You can use whatever style of piping you like. The purpose of it is to act as glue, so that the candy decorations will stick to it.

As soon as you finish piping, while the frosting is still soft and sticky, lift your shapes up from the parchment and push them into the piping.

This piping will set and secure the toppers in place. No one will guess you made these topper with melted candy in less than 5 minutes!

I hope you’ve seen some ideas you want to try! Please tag @britishgirlbakes in your photos on instagram so I can see your creations. Visit my online cake school for LOTS of unique cake designs and for monthly cake inspiration join my Club for access to ALL of my online classes as well as live interactive demonstrations and Q&A sessions!

Here’s the video version of this tutorial:

In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to make gorgeous ombre frosting that blends from light to dark gradually, instead of in distinct bands or stripes of colour around the cake. If you prefer to watch a video of this tutorial, scroll to the bottom of the page.

Start with two bowls of frosting, one with twice as much as the other bowl. I’m using my 4 Minute Buttercream but this will work with whipped cream or meringue buttercream, too.

Tint the big bowl of frosting with the lighter colour and the small bowl with the darker colour, using gel colours for the most vibrant shades.

Place your cake on a non-slip mat on a turntable after the crumb coat has set. Scoop up some of the lighter frosting with an offset spatula and spread it onto the top of the cake, spreading it over the edges of the cake to avoid air pockets there later on.

Smooth the frosting on the top of the cake by holding your offset spatula at a 45 degree angle and spinning the cake, swiping the spatula off to take off the excess frosting with it.

Then move onto the sides of the cake, only spreading this lightest colour around the very top of the sides of the cake. Let it stick up above the top edge of the cake, which will allow you to create a very flat top of your cake instead of a domed top.

Now scoop up a bit of the darker colour and add it to the lighter colour, stirring it together to create a shade a little bit darker than the original colour that was in this bowl. Leave some of the lightest colour on the side fo the bowl to use for touchups later.

Spread the new colour just below the first colour on the cake, spreading it on as thickly as the previous colour. It’s fine if you spread it over the previous colour because it’s all going to blend together in a minute.

Add more of the darkest colour to the bowl to make a darker shade of the lighter colour. Mix the new colour together, leaving a bit of the previous colour on the side of the bowl to use later. Spread this onto the cake immediately below the previous colour.

The wider the band of colour you spread on, the fewer shades you’ll fit onto the cake so for an ombre with more shades within the gradient, spread very narrow bands of colour onto the cake. This means you’ll be able to fit in more shades.

After spreading each shade onto the cake, add more of the darkest colour to the bowl, mix it together leaving a bit of the previous colour saved on the side of the bowl for later, and spread the new colour onto the cake.

When you get to the bottom of the cake, use only the darkest colour to spread on the final band of colour. Make sure you spread it all the way down to the cake board so the crumb coat is completely covered up and you won’t have any gaps at the very bottom of the cake.

Now use a frosting smoother and scrape around the cake once, resting the frosting smoother down on the cake board to line it up to create straight sides on the cake.

Remember the small amounts of each shade of frosting you saved on the side of the bowl? Here’s where they come in. Scoop them up to spread onto the cake to fill in any indents in the frosting.

You can use the darker shades to fill in indents lower down on the cake and the lighter shades to fill in indents at the top, or do the opposite: here I’m using darker shades at the top to make the blending more gradual. It’s fun to play around with the different shades as you do touchups,

Once the sides are as blended and as smooth as you want them to be, move onto the top of the cake. Scrape the overhanging frosting towards the middle of the cake with your offset spatula and then swipe the spatula off the cake to take the excess frosting off with it.

Scrape that frosting into your bowl and wipe the spatula clean and repeat around the top edge to leave sharp edges and a flat top surface of the cake.

When the top is finished, check the top edge for indents and if you have any, spread more frosting onto those, choosing form the shades you have in your bowl. Scrape around the cake again with your frosting smoother and tidy up the top edge of the cake again.

If you want to use up the leftover shades of frosting you have in your bowl, add a border on top of the cake by mixing the colours together and spooning them into a piping bag. For this cake I’m using a 1M star tip and for more ideas check out my tutorial on 5 borders you can pipe with a 1M tip.

This is a “rope border” with overlapping links of buttercream around the top edge of the cake. For frosting techniques, decorative details, more borders, cake toppers, and different ways to write on cakes, check out my online course on 50 Easy Cake Decorating Techniques or join my Club+ for access to ALL of my online classes and courses as well as live online classes and Q&A sessions for members only!

Here’s the video version of this tutorial:

You probably have ziploc bags in your house already so for these cake decorating techniques you won’t have to go out and buy any special cake decorating tools.

If you prefer to watch a video of this tutorial, scroll to the bottom of the page.

Use ziploc bags to create perfect stripes on cakes, without needing any fancy striped cake combs. Tint two bowls of buttercream or whatever frosting you’re using and put them into large ziploc bags.

You’ll need to cut a hole in one corner of the bag but it’s important that the holes in both bags are the same size, so line them up above each other and cut the same amount off each bag.

Rest the first bag down on the cake board and squeeze it to pipe your first stripe around the bottom of the cake and then alternate bags, working your way up the cake. Try to pipe each stripe the same thickness and let them touch each other so there aren’t gaps in between them.

When you get close enough to the top to see which colour will end up at the top, pipe and spread that colour over the top and smooth it with an offset spatula, scraping off any frosting that pushes out over the edge of the cake.

Pipe stripes up to the top edge of the cake and then use a frosting smoother to scrape around the cake a few times to smooth the frosting.

After a few scrapes, touch up any gaps in the frosting by squeezing out some more and then scrape around a few more times to smooth those areas, too.

Wipe any frosting off your frosting smoother after each scrape around the cake.

Tidy up the top edge of the cake by swiping across with your offset spatula to take any extra frosting off with it.

Tadaa! Quick and easy stripes piped with ziplock bags!

Create a stunning drip with a ziploc bag. Start by melting cream with 3 times the amount of white chocolate in a bowl in the microwave and then pour that into a ziploc bag.

It’s easiest if you fold the bag over a cup or glass to keep it open. Let the chocolate cool for a few minutes until it comes to room temperature and then snip a tiny piece off one corner of the ziplock bag.

Squeeze the chocolate around the edge of a cake that’s been chilled in the fridge, pausing wherever you want to make.a drip to let the chocolate spill over the edge and down the side of the cake. The coldness of the cake will stop the drip before it gets to the bottom of the cake.

Squeeze more chocolate onto the top of the cake and spread it with an offset spatula and to create come texture, hold the top of the spatula on the outer edge of the cake and spinning the cake and slowly pull your hand in towards the middle, to create a spiral.

No one would ever guess that this stunning drip was created using a ziploc bag!

Incorporate your favourite cookie into a cake using a ziploc bag! Place a few in a ziplock bag, seal it, and smash the cookies using a mug or a rolling pin.

Crush the cookies as finely as you like. If you’re going to use the crumbs in frosting, which I’ll explain in a moment, it’s easiest if the crumbs are very fine without any large chunks.

You can use these crumbs in a few ways. Firstly, Oreo crumbs are DELICIOUS in buttercream! I use 6 Oreos for a batch of my 4 Minute Buttercream, which makes enough buttercream to fill and frost an 8″ cake.

Pour the crumbs into the bowl and stir them just until they’re mixed in. If you keep stirring, you’ll make grey frosting.

Use this as a filling between layers of cake, or to frost a cake. I love chocolate cake paired with Oreo buttercream but it’s also delicious with vanilla cake.

For a yummy border, place the cake on a tray and then press the crumbs into the bottom of the frosting. The tray will catch any crumbs that fall of the cake board, making them easier to clean up.

Use any leftover the frosting in a piping bag with a 1M tip to pipe swirls of frosting on top of the cake to finish it off!

Perhaps not the most elegant way to use ziploc bags, but they provide an easy, mess-free method of transforming Oreos from plain cookies to a delicious cake!

To make gorgeous chocolate toppers, melt chocolate in the microwave at 80% power for 30 seconds at a time so it doesn’t seize. Spoon it into a ziplock bag.

Seal the ziploc bag and cut off a  very small piece from one corner. The smaller the shape you want to create, the smaller the hole you’ll probably want to cut.

Squeeze the chocolate out to draw whatever shape you like onto parchment paper. Start with an outline and fill it in to make a full shape. I like to tape the parchment onto a tray so it doesn’t move around while I’m piping.

Use a toothpick to flatten the chocolate so it’s all the same thickness, and you can also drag the chocolate out to adjust your outline if you want to.

Pour sprinkles over the chocolate now, while it’s still melted and sticky. If your sprinkle mix has any large sprinkles, gently push them into the chocolate to attach them.

When the chocolate sets you can lift the shapes up and use them to decorate a cake or cupcakes!

Make sure you push them into frosting just after spreading or piping it, while the frosting is still soft and sticky so that the chocolate shapes attach easily.

To add some detail to the top of a cake, pipe a border with a ziploc bag. Spoon frosting into a ziplock bag and cut a corner off to make a hole about the size of a piping tip, just like for the piped stripes in the first technique.

Hold the bag above the cake, slightly in from the outer edge, and squeeze the frosting out and let it bulge out of the bag up to the edge fo the cake, and then pull the bag slowly towards the middle fo the cake to pull the frosting back with it. Stop squeezing and pull the bag away and continue to pipe like this side by side all the way around the cake to make a ring.

Pipe another ring inside it, overlapping the outer ring to layer the piping on top. This looks pretty from the top but also from the side!

Pipe intricate designs using ziploc bags! You’ll need a few ziploc bags of coloured frosting, a tapered offset spatula or a small palette knife, and a cake with frosting that’s set.

Sketch an outline of your fish into the frosting using a toothpick. You can freehand the design or draw or print an image and cut it out and then trace around it onto the frosting on the cake.

Cut a very small piece off the corner of each ziploc bag and outline the face and fins of the fish by piping frosting with the ziploc bags.

Spread the piping flat with the edge of your offset spatula. Because the final coat of frosting on the cake has set, the piped frosting won’t blend with the frosting on the cake as you pipe and spread it, so the colours will stay distinct.

After the face and fins, start piping dots of coioured frosting to create the body of the fish. Pipe in columns, with one dot above the other, and only pipe one line of dots at a time.

Now turn each dot into a scale by pressing the tip of your offset spatula into the middle fo the dot and then dragging it sideways to pull the frosting away and flatten it at the same time.

Wipe your offset spatula clean after each dot to keep the colours separate so that they stay bright. If you don’t wipe the spatula clean, you’ll drag some of the previous colour of buttercream onto the next dot, for example mixing orange with purple, which would make a brown dot.

Using ziplock bags is an easy and convenient way to pipe this colourful fish because if you used piping tips, you’d need several identical small round piping tips, which you probably don’t have but you probably DO have a few ziploc bags in the kitchen!

I hope you’ve seen some ideas you’d like to try. Please tag @britishgirlbakes in your photos on Instagram so I can see your creations!

If you’re looking for buttercream inspiration, join my Club for access to ALL of my online classes as well as live interactive online demonstrations and Q&A sessions for members only!

Here’s the video version of this tutorial:

I’m going to show you 5 borders you can pipe with a 1M tip or any other star shaped piping tip. You can use buttercream, whipped cream, ganache, or meringue buttercream for all of these borders. (I’m using my 4 Minute Buttercream for this tutorial.) If you prefer to watch a video of this tutorial, scroll to the bottom of the page.

This is a rope border made with overlapping circles of frosting which look like the links of a rope. Hold your piping bag at a diagonal and pipe little C shapes, and at the end of the C loop back around to pipe another one.

If you need to adjust your piping bag, swipe away at the end of a C shape, adjust the bag, and then start at the same place. That point will be covered up by the next C so you won’t notice the join. 

Watch the outer edge of the cake as you pipe, making sure you pipe just up to the edge of the cake but not over the edge. When you’ve gone all the way around the cake, for the final C shape swipe the piping bag away when you finish the link. 

The end of the piping gets lost in the rest of the texture of the border so it’s not noticeable after you finish the border. 

To pipe a wave or shell border hold the piping tip at a diagonal again and as you squeeze out the buttercream, push the bag away from you slightly to allow the frosting bulge out and form the crest of the wave, or the rounded part of the shell. 

Then pull the piping bag away slowly, and as you stop squeezing on the bag, swipe the bag away. Repeat the motion but overlap the previous wave or shell so that this one begins over the top of the tail of the previous wave or shell. 

Keep an eye on the edge of the cake to make sure you’re piping the same distance in from the outer edge, all the way around the cake, and overlap the piping the same amount for each wave or shell. 

These shape shapes can be used to make rings of waves. Use the same motion to pipe the frosting, pushing the bag away to allow the frosting to bulge out and then pulling the bag away to leave a tail, but instead of piping these top to tail around the cake, pipe them side by side in a ring around the outer edge of the cake. 

Try to start the same distance in from the edge of the cake each time, and allow the frosting to bulge out just up to the edge of the cake, not over it. Angle your piping bag as you pipe so that the tip is always pointing in the direction your wave or shell will point. 

When you finish the first ring, pipe another ring within this one, overlapping the tails of the previous ring of piping. You can alternate colours for each ring of piping to add more colours to the piping, or alternate between colours for each wave or shell you pipe in the same ring.

Continue piping rings of waves until you get to the middle of the cake. I like to pipe a single squeeze of frosting in the middle to cover up the tails of the last ring of piping.

These swirls are the quickest, easiest border. Hold the piping tip about a cm in from the edge of the cake and pipe a spiral, with each ring getting smaller until your swirl comes to a peak. 

At the top of your swirl push down slightly, stop squeezing the bag, and lift the bag away and that will leave a nice neat point at the top of the swirl. If you’ve ever piped a swirl on a cupcake before, this is exactly the same motion but with a tighter spiral to make a smaller swirl.

Pipe the swirls side by side around the cake if you want them to touch each other or to space them evenly around the cake, pipe them opposite each other at 4 points around the cake and then fill in the gaps, so that there’s the same amount of space between each swirl.

For a ruffle or wiggle border, pipe from side to side and gradually lift the piping bag so that the ruffles fold over each other a few times. Lift the bag up in the middle of a ruffle  to leave a peak. 

For each ruffle, start at the same side, either the left or the right, and finish all of the ruffles by lifting your piping bag while you’re piping in the same direction, either to the left or the right, so that the ruffles are identical. 

Pipe each ruffle right up to the edge of the cake and hold the piping bag directly above the ruffle as you pipe, so that the ruffle doesn’t lean in towards the middle of the cake to out over the edge. 

These 5 borders are all quick and easy to pipe but they all create different textures – choose a different one for each cake you decorate to make it unique! Tell me in the comments: which is your go-to border and which one do you want to try next?

If you don’t like something you’ve piped or you change your mind and want to use a different colour or a totally different border, scrape the border off the cake just after piping it and it will come off easily.

This is the most effective if you’re chilled your cake before adding the border because as you scrape the border off, you won’t damage the frosting on the cake because the base frosting is cold and hard so it will hold its shape.

Use an offset spatula or frosting smoother to scrape the border off and if the frosting on the cake has set, you can wipe any remaining smudges of frosting off the cake with a paper towel. Don’t worry too much about the middle of the cake because after piping the border, that won’t really be visible.

If you’re looking for cake inspiration, join my Club for access to ALL of my online classes and courses as well as live online classes and Q&A sessions for members only!

Here’s the video version of this tutorial:

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to make jet black frosting and how to add colourful galactic details, sparkling constellations, and a gravity defying cake topper! If you prefer to watch a video of this tutorial, scroll to the bottom of the page.

Start by making black frosting. I like to start with a dark brown buttercream made with melted chocolate a cocoa powder so that you need a minimal amount of black gel colour. Click here for my recipe for black buttercream that won’t stain your teeth. It is possible to make plain vanilla buttercream black, like my 4 Minute Buttercream, and that’s what I’m using for this cake.

The colour will develop as it sits so after mixing it in, cover the bowl with a lid or with cling film or Saran Wrap and after an hour it will be several shades darker. You can add even more colour if you want, and then cover it again and wait another hour.

Frost your cake as normal with the black buttercream and scrape around the cake a few times with a frosting smoother until it’s fairly smooth, but don’t worry about getting it perfect yet.

Now spread on a few dabs of brightly coloured buttercream, like pink and teal and purple and blue. I made these bright colours using gel colours because they’re very concentrated so you only need a few drops to get really bright and bold colours.

Scrape around the cake once to start to blend the colours. Then touch up any indents in the frosting by spreading on more frosting, either the bright colours or black, depending on how subtle you want the bright colours to be.

Scrape around the cake again and the purpose of this is twofold: to blend the bright colours into the black and also to finish smoothing the frosting.

After each scrape, touch up any indents. If you do the touch-ups with black you’ll dull the colours or if you choose to add more of the bright colours you’ll make the bright galactic patches more intense.

Work as quickly as you can because as the frosting starts to set, which will happen within about 10 minutes if your cake layers are chilled, any coloured frosting you add won’t blend as well with the black frosting so the patches of colour will be more obvious.

When you’re happy with the sides of the cake, tidy up the top edge by scraping any overhanging frosting into the middle of the cake and then swipe it off the cake on your offset spatula.

Now it’s time to add some constellations! I’m using silver luster dust for this, mixing it with a few drops of vodka. Any other clear alcohol will work or a clear extract like lemon extract or artificial vanilla extract. Mix it to make a thick paint.

Then flick your paintbrush towards the cake, stopping it just before the cake to let the silver paint spray out over the cake. I like to tap the paintbrush against a finger to stop it suddenly and create the spray. If you don’t use that extra finger, the motion you’re using is a quick flick, how you would cast a spell with a magic wand! You can use white icing color for this instead of silver paint. Remember to do this on the top of the cake as well.

Wipe any smudges of frosting or silver paint off the cake board using a paper towel wrapped around your finger.

I show how to make this gorgeous black heart topper out of chocolate in my tutorial on geometric hearts. Poke a toothpick or a wooden skewer into the bottom of the heart for support.

Before adding the heart topper to the cake, pull apart come candy floss or cotton candy to make it nice and fluffy and cloud-like and then place that on top of the cake.

Push the heart on its stick into the middle of the cotton candy to skewer that in place and to conceal the stick so that it looks like the cotton candy and the heart are floating above the galaxy cake. Rearrange it by pinching it and pulling it apart to make it fluffier.

And there it is! A stunning galaxy cake with a gravity defying cake topper! For cake inspiration and to learn all sorts of techniques and designs, join my Club for access to ALL of my online classes from just $5 a month! 

Here’s the video version of this tutorial:

In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to make your own stencils easily and cheaply and how use them to create gorgeous cake designs! If you prefer to watch a video of this tutorial, scroll to the bottom of the page.

1. Choose a material

Parchment paper is cheap and easy to find and it’s easy to cut into whatever shape you like. However, it’s flimsy so it’s only effective for very basic outlines like a heart or a star.

Acetate is more expensive than parchment and not as easy to find -you’ll have to look in an arts and crafts shop or on Amazon to find it. It’s a bit trickier to cut into a shape than parchment papers is but it’s thicker and stronger, so you can use it for more intricate designs.

2. Choose your design

This will need to be simple for parchment, which is delicate and will smudge very detailed shapes. You can create more intricate designs with acetate.

If your design is complicated you might to choose to print it and then transfer it onto your stencil. Before you print it, resize it on the computer so it will fit nicely onto your cake.

You can use a cookie cutter instead, if you have one that’s the right shape and size.

3. Create your stencil

How you create your stencil depends on the material you’re using. For parchment you can sketch your shape straight onto the paper. Fold it and snip the fold anywhere within the shape and that will provide a place to fit your scissor blade into. Skewer the middle of the shape with your scissors and then cut around the outline of the shape.

It doesn’t matter that you’re damaging the shape because you’re going to throw that part away. Be careful to cut along the outline of the shape smoothly and to leave the parchment beyond the outline intact because this will become your stencil.

If you’re using a cookie cutter for your design, trace around the shape and then cut that out the same way, skewering the middle with your scissors and trimming around the outline. Again, it’s only the outer part that you’ll need for your stencil, not the actual shape.

To trace your shape, place parchment over your design, taping it down or holding it steady, and draw over the outline. You can simplify the design if you want to.

Then cut the design out with scissors. It’s quite fast to cut a design out of parchment paper compared to acetate because it’s thin and easy to move around.

For acetate you’ll need scissors for basic designs or for intricate designs, a cutting, some tape, and a boxcutter or Stanley knife are helpful.

For a simple design like a heart, you can just cut the shape straight out of the acetate, just like you would do with parchment paper.

But for an intricate design like this map, tape the acetate onto the design, place it on a surface like a cutting board that you can cut onto, and then use a sharp blade to cut a line in the middle of each large shape. This makes it easier to insert your scissors to cut around the outline of the design.

Because acetate is thicker than parchment, cutting out the shape is more time consuming than using parchment paper. But for intricate designs it’s worth the effort and you’ll see the benefits of acetate later on in the process.

Now that you’ve made your stencil, it’s almost time to use it on your cake. But before applying your stencil, leave your cake in the fridge for at least an hour or ideally overnight, so the frosting gets very cold and really hard.

I made some fun animations for my video version of this tutorial, which you can watch at the bottom of the page. I took a few animation classes on Skillshare to learn how to create these, and I’m excited to partner with Skillshare to offer you a FREE trial of Premium membership so that you can take any of their thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people. Explore new skills, deepen existing passions, and get lost in creativity! There are classes on lots of different skills you can use in your cake designs, like illustration and painting. Click here for your free trial!

4. Attach your stencil to your cake

You can hold your stencil against the cake, pressing firmly to make sure it doesn’t slide around. This works better with simple shapes than very detailed shapes.

For more security, pin the stencil onto your cake by wrapping it tightly around the cake and then pressing a pin into each side, to hold it still while leaving both of your hands free.

If you don’t want to push pins into the cake you can wrap the stencil around the cake and then use another piece of parchment or acetate to overlap the stencil, taping the two pieces together. Make sure you pull the parchment or acetate tightly before taping it, so that the stencil is wrapped tightly around the cake.

5. Add colour to your design

Spread buttercream over the shape onto the exposed cake within the shape you cut out of the stencil. Spread from the stencil over onto the shape, not from the shape out over the stencil, because that might push buttercream underneath the outline of the stencil and that will smudge your design.

This is especially important for parchment because it’s very thin and flimsy, so buttercream can easily be pushed under it.

When you’ve covered up the whole design with buttercream you can either smooth it or add texture. To smooth it, scrape across the design with the edge of your offset spatula or a frosting smoother to scrape off any excess buttercream and leave a thin, smooth layer behind.

To add texture to the shape, scrape in any direction with your offset spatula. For this cake I’m scraping upwards to create grooves going up the shape.

6. Peel off the stencil

Peel the stencil off straight away, before the buttercream sets, for the neatest outline.

If there are any smudges in your outline you can scrape them off with a toothpick or offset spatula and because the base frosting on the cake is cold and hard, you won’t damage it as you scrape off the smudged frosting from the stencil design.

7. Add finishing touches

Sprinkles can be a nice finishing touch for an otherwise simple stencil design. Press them into the outline of the shape either one by one, or by scooping up a handful and angling your hand to press the whole handful of sprinkles into the edge of the shape.

Because the base frosting on the cake has set, it isn’t sticky so that sprinkles won’t stick to that, only to the fresh buttercream you’ve just spread onto the stencil. For more ways to use sprinkles check out my tutorial on 5 sprinkle cake hacks.

I can’t wait to see what you create! Please tag @britishgirlbakes on instagram so I can see the photos of your beautifully stenciled cakes!

If you’re looking for inspiration, join my Club for access to ALL of my online classes as well as live online classes and Q&A sessions for members only!

Here’s the video version of this tutorial:

Sprinkles are colourful and fun but there is SO much more that you can do than just sprinkling them onto a cake! Decorate professional looking cakes with these 5 sprinkle cake hacks. If you prefer to watch a video of this tutorial, scroll to the bottom of the page.

Sprinkle Cake Hack #1

For an easy way to jazz up an otherwise plain cake, create a sprinkle border! Place your cake on a tray to catch any falling sprinkles so you don’t have a huge mess to clean up afterwards.

Pour sprinkles around the cake onto the cake board and then use a spoon or an offset spatula or your hands to push them into the frosting at the bottom of the sides of the cake to make a border.

If you’ve just frosted the cake, the frosting will be soft and sticky so the sprinkles will attach easily. If the frosting has set, you’ll have to push them in a bit harder to make them stick.

With no other decorations, the sprinkled border makes this cake look glamorous!

Sprinkle Cake Hack #2

Creating shaped details with sprinkles can be a huge time saver, replacing tedious piping. I’ll show you a few examples. For piped flowers, you could use a small round piping tip to pipe dots of frosting in the middle of each flower using another colour, but that would mean tinting another colour of frosting and dirtying another piping bag and another piping tip.

Instead, pushing a sprinkle into the center of each flower takes less than a second!

These piped flowers are part on my online course on 50 Easy Cake Decorating Techniques for ANY Skill Level. Take the course or join the ClubPLUS for access to ALL of my classes and courses for just $17 a month!

On this cake, to add a heart between the two dinosaurs you could outline the heart with a cookie cutter and then pipe tiny dots to fill the heart shape, OR you can press a heart shaped sprinkle into the frosting instead!

Sprinkle Cake Hack #3

Sprinkles are a convenient way to cover up or distract from imperfections in a cake.

This zig zag design is nice and colourful and although the stripes aren’t perfect, once I’ve added sprinkles to make a gold design within the zig zags your eye is drawn to the texture of the sprinkles and you suddenly don’t notice the imperfections in the zig zags anymore!

Sprinkle Cake Hack #4

Stencils are stunning but tricky and it’s infuriating to peel a stencil off a cake to reveal a smudged outline or a missing part of the design. Instead of scraping the cake and starting all over again, use sprinkles to fix the stencil design! If the outline is smudged, spread the frosting a little bit beyond the original outline of the shape so that the smudge is included in the shape.

Then press sprinkles into the edge of the shape, again using a tray underneath the cake board to catch any falling sprinkles.

The quickest way to attach the sprinkles is to scoop up a handful and angle your hand so that they fall off against the edge of the shape. Since the base frosting on the cake has set, the sprinkles won’t stick to that but they will stick to the sticky frosting within the stencil shape.

The glitzy sprinkle outline will disguise the smudges AND make the design even more detailed.

If parts of the stencil design are missing because they peeled off with your stencil instead of sticking to the cake, add sprinkles to those sections to fill in the gaps AND add some interesting texture!

Sprinkle Cake Hack #5

Sprinkles add colour and texture to a cake and but also work excellently on cake toppers that bring the whole cake together by matching a base border. For example, add sprinkles to meringue pops before you bake them and use the same sprinkle mix to create a border around the bottom of the cake using the first sprinkle cake hack from this tutorial.

For a super easy no-bake topper, roll sandwich cookies like Oreos in sprinkles. Use the same sprinkle mix for a border to tie everything together.

Sprinkles make beautiful chocolate shapes to use as cake toppers, too! I teach how to make all of these cake toppers and more in my online course on 50 Easy Cake Decorating Techniques.

What’s your favourite way to use sprinkles to decorate a cake? Tell me in the comments!

Here’s the video version of this tutorial: